How Not to Motivate a Soccer Team

Part of a Nazi leader’s speech was played over the public address system before a high school soccer game, prompting an apology by the home team’s principal.

Forestview High School principal Robert Carpenter said neither he nor his team’s coach knew about the speech before the 90-second excerpt was played during warmups Saturday, according to a letter he sent Monday to visiting Charlotte Catholic High School.

The speech, by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, was in German. Carpenter said in the letter the team had adopted the slogan “On to victory,” and a German exchange student who plays on the team had taught other students how to say the phrase in German.

“Some of our more zealous students sought to capture this slogan in German and to play it on the PA,” Carpenter wrote.

School officials said two players had downloaded the speech off the Internet, and no adult heard it before it was played at the field, The Charlotte Observer reported Wednesday.

Catholic coach Gary Hoilett said his squad was “just real shocked.”

I always knew there was something fishy about the growing popularity of soccer in America…

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